FAQs

Q: Do you have an architect or designer to help us with the barn house design?
A: Yes…We have several architects, interior designers, engineers and draftsmen whose experience in transforming wonderful old barns into homes is available to our clients.

Q: Do you work outside Bucks County Pa.?
A: Don’t let our name fool you. While most of us at Bucks County TimberCraft Inc. live here and call Bucks County our home, we love sharing our passion for old timber frame barns with anyone who shares the same affinity for a barn’s simplistic design and historical conservation as we do. Some of our restored barns have found new lives as far away as California, Arizona, Connecticut and Tennessee. For such distant jobs, we often are just contracted to relocate and raise one of our restored barns and install the insulated wall and roof panels. Local contractors are then used to finish the barn conversion.

Q: Can you help us find land or a lot in Bucks County to build our barn conversion on?
A: Having spent most of our lives here in Bucks County, we have some wonderful long standing relationships with the areas’ landowners, developers, and premier realtors and are often privy to lots becoming available long before they get listed with an agency. Be it a fifty acre farm estate lot or a quite ten acre wooded lot with creek frontage, let us know and we’ll help put you in touch with the appropriate people.

Q: How much does a barn conversion cost?
A: Our barn conversions come in two forms. The most common method to transform an antique barn into your special living or commercial space is to select an antique barn frame from our inventory and have it relocated to your site. This approach allows the client complete control over the design process since you’re designing from the ground up. Recently, barn homes that our clients have had converted using this approach have commented that their final cost was comparable or only slightly higher than that of having a custom conventional house built.

The second situation would be an existing barn on a lot that the client has purchased with the intention of converting the barn into living or commercial space. These barns first require an in depth survey by us in order to determine the structural integrity of the barns timber frame and foundation. The results of that survey will determine whether it’s more cost effective to proceed with a conversion of that existing barn or simply start from scratch and relocate one of our restored barn frames to the site. On average, using existing barns that are in good condition structurally will result in a conversion cost comparable to that of having a restored barn relocated to the new site.

Aside from the barn/timber frame aspect of the project, elaborate finishes and more complex mechanical systems all weigh heavily on the final cost of a barn conversion project. We present complete bid packages to our clients so that there are no unknowns or hidden costs before breaking ground. Often our relationships with our clients extend far beyond the building process so it’s very important for us to maintain an honest and open working relationship during the entire building process. Resorting to constant change orders and extras in order to make a few extra dollars doesn’t bode well for such relationships.

Q: Do you buy old barns or barnwood?
A: With barns being such an important part of our regions landscape, we prefer to use only those barns that must come down for our barn conversions. If through neglect or necessity your barn must come down though, please call us to see how we can help to give it another life on another site.